Portrait of Mrs Ellen Morewood, full-length, in a yellow dress with a blue sash and a mauve wrap, leaning on a pedestal, in a wooded landscape

Ellen Morewood, who was the daughter of Francis Goodwyn, of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, married George Morewood, of Alfreton Hall, Derbyshire, who was High Sheriff of that county in 1762. The Morewood family, of whom the sitter's husband was the last male representative, were among the most prominent gentry families in Derbyshire and had acquired Alfreton in 1629, remodelling it in the early 18th Century. On his death in 1792 Ellen Morewood's husband bequeathed Alfreton Hall to her and the following year she married Henry Case, Rector of Ladbroke, Warwickshire, who then assumed the name of Morewood. Following the death of her second husband Ellen Morewood willed Alfreton and its contents to her sister's children, the Palmers, who then assumed the named Palmer-Morewood. Alfreton Hall was finally sold by the Palmer-Morewoods in 1957 and was demolished in 1968.

This fashionably neo-classical portrait would appear to date from the late 1760s or early 1770s, before Romney travelled to Rome. Kidson (op.cit.) draws comparison between it and Romney's full-length portrait of Mrs Henry Verelst, wife of Harry Verelst of Aston Hall, 'one of the most elegant of all his full-length female figures ...' which is traditionally dated 1771 (now in Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council's collection). Romney also painted a full-length portrait of Mrs Morewood's husband. Mrs Morewood was later painted by Joseph Wright of Derby, together with her future second husband, the Rev. Henry Case, in a pair of portraits in 1782 (see B. Nicholson, Joseph Wright of Derby, London, 1968, I, p. 213, nos. 108 and 109, II, pls. 223 and 224).